Outdoors: Story behind Massachusetts' record deer

A lot passed in this big buck’s life before he was taken by Dan Daigle of Rutland on a hunt last month.

Before Nov. 14, the world knew nothing about Massachusetts’ greatest buck. It had lived in total secrecy.

The details of the hunter and the hunt by now have spread across the country and likely will be featured in several national magazines and documented in the record books. Today, though, we can piece together and celebrate much about the magnificent buck’s life and family.

We’ll never know, of course, the identity of his special mother and father — or even which of his two parents actually passed down the remarkable genes for his gigantic antlers. Many erroneously assume that it’s always the buck that bequeaths his son’s antler characteristics. While that may be true, just as human mothers carry their sons’ trait for baldness, deer mothers can pass on spectacular traits to their young as well.

Those who argue that shooting big bucks hurts the gene pool don’t understand genetics. Does sired by exceptional parents remain equally valuable repositories of DNA, and great bucks breed many times before they reach full, spectacular maturity. Superior antler growth is also largely dependent on habitat quality, nutrition, longevity and calcium content of soils.

We do know much about his parents’ relationship. Typical of all deer, they mated only one day during the doe’s 24-hour early November heat. A day later, their biological imperative having been satisfied, with mutual willingness and total lack of resentment, they permanently parted ways.

She would soon rejoin her maternal wintering group, destined to be a single mother in a little less than seven months, and he would obsessively continue seeking other neighboring hot does emitting irresistibly alluring perfumes of estrogen. His polygamous nature over the years likely resulted in the birth of several other Rutland-area giants.

Our Rutland buck’s mother was hyper-wary, having previously survived one or more bow hunting, shotgun and muzzle-loader seasons every year between Oct. 15 and Dec. 31. Her tentative movements would be largely crepuscular and nocturnal, as she customarily bedded down for most of the day to avoid most dangers. Her eyesight, well adapted for the night, would serve her well in her nocturnal movements and feeding. During the full moon, she would often forage all night.

She was also remarkably tough, having endured one if not more food-scarce winters. She benefited from a lowered metabolism, her species’ body response to diminishing hours of daylight. Those seasonal physiological changes — and her 20 percent-of-body-weight accumulated fat — would allow her to live on about 30 percent fewer calories and reduce her winter movements by 50 percent.

Buds and other slim pickings close to her bedding area would provide most of her nutrition when she wasn’t nocturnally browsing on someone’s landscape or couldn’t find her favorite acorns, open fields of winter rye, or patches of clover.

On the coldest days, she’d preferably bed on sunny, southern-facing slopes, often favoring pine groves that additionally afforded overhead cover. Looking down her hill, constantly testing the wind and independently focusing her ears, she would never totally be at rest.

Her remarkable digestive system, often compared to an internal boiler room, would provide her an amazing degree of body heat, keeping her warm on the coldest New England nights. Her dense, long, hollow body hair was so insulating, she typically didn’t melt the snow she had bedded in. In response to the dangers of predation, her four stomachs would allow her to eat and swallow large quantities of food fast, to regurgitate and chew later, extracting maximum nutrition in safety at her leisure.

Our special buck’s mother listened intently to the cacophonous music of the human world around her, recognizing snowmobiles, ATVs, chain saws, traffic, dogs and footsteps, knowing well which to ignore, and which to flee.

Her historically important pregnancy that significantly altered our record book occurred six years ago. Inside her, all that winter, her soon-to-be famous fawn developed, its emergence essentially timed for early June when she could get enough nourishment for milk production and find vegetation thick enough to hide him.

After being carried for almost seven months, like all fawns, Rutland’s great buck was raised by a totally devoted and mentoring, if not constantly doting, single mother. It’s likely he had a twin. Both would be left entirely alone for many hours each day, separated by a good distance, as their mother fed and bedded elsewhere, removing her scent and appearance from their sanctuary, and allowing their initially scent-free bodies to give them a degree of protection against predators.

For the first couple of weeks, much unlike human babies, they would instinctively remain totally quiet and motionless despite building hunger, patiently waiting to be nursed briefly only twice each day.

Rutland’s special fawn was lucky on too many occasions to even count. Many of his age class were discovered and devoured early by coyotes, bears and bobcats. When it reached a month old, it finally could outrun the ever-dangerous, always scavenging coyotes which would soon revert to eating mostly rodents.

Our little “skipper” or first-year “button buck” would keep his spots until around August, drinking his mother’s slightly bitter, tannin-tainted milk as late as November. All the while, he learned well from his mom a hundred edible forbs, wildflowers, grasses and buds. He would find ferns, barberry and certain other exotic plants most distasteful, eating everything but them and leading to their spread.

He would quickly discover he could eat poison ivy and poison mushrooms with impunity and that he really liked lady slippers, lilies and other wildflowers. The buck also enjoyed corn tops, apple buds, acorns and highly nutritious landscape plants like hostas and yews, which he’d dine on undetected in suburban back yards at night. He definitely loved first-year tree growth, too.

Annoying nuisances — including ticks, black flies, mosquitoes, bot flies and horseflies — plagued him from the start. His dense, short and wiry red hair would turn to gray-brown, well mimicking tree bark and insulating him during his first winter.

He was born with keen eyesight and hearing, but his sense of smell would prove phenomenal and key to his survival. He would learn to avoid human odor, amazingly able to detect it downwind several hundred yards from its source.

During his education, he certainly came close to several bow hunters’ tree stands. We’ll never know how many archers may have let him pass, patiently waiting for a fully mature buck or heavy doe to harvest. He definitely heard gunshots — some very close. All the while, our button buck skipper would learn to become a buck, displaying an ever-more phantom-like, reclusive nature until his second autumn, when diminishing daylight would trigger his testosterone production, drive him to leave his bachelor group, and mate with his first doe.

Our magnificent buck certainly mated with many Rutland does over the years, passing on his remarkable genes to dozens of fawns. His legacy will become apparent only with future Rutland hunters’ harvests.

Early on, as a wannabe stud of a mere year and a half, he had to be sneaky, risking being gored by the antlers of much bigger rutting bucks on territory. His neck was likely stabbed numerous times, and he was certainly tossed and bulled over on several occasions by much heavier adversaries. He would engage in antler-rattling skirmishes, becoming a serious contender by his third autumn.

By the wear on his teeth, we know our fully mature buck was 6-1/2 years old when taken. His spectacular, deciduous antlers likely would have never grown bigger, and in subsequent years actually would have begun to diminish progressively in size.

All aging bucks deteriorate. Had he lived to age 10, a feat of longevity rarely accomplished, his teeth would have ground down to the gums, a natural function of the abrasive minerals inadvertently chewed during his grazing. He would have died shortly after of starvation, unable to chew his food.

The great Rutland buck was tagged and claimed by an extraordinarily skilled and deserving bow hunter, Dan Daigle, without whom we might never have known of its existence, or what the growth potential of our Massachusetts herd can be.

Forever now, many across the country will refer to this supremely magnificent animal as the Daigle buck or the Rutland buck. But it truly belongs to Massachusetts, especially all of us in Worcester County who have proven good stewards of our land and proudly value our exceptional wildlife heritage.